House Democrats on Tuesday unveiled sweeping health-care legislation that would hit all but the smallest businesses with a penalty equal to 8% of payroll if they fail to provide health insurance to workers.

The House bill, which also would impose new taxes on the wealthy estimated to bring in more than $544 billion over a decade, came as lawmakers in the Senate raced against a self-imposed deadline of this week to introduce a bill in time for action this summer.

Senators face a tougher battle because they are striving for a bipartisan bill. Key senators are weighing a combination of several more-modest fund-raising provisions, including some new fees on health-care industries.

Under the House measure, employers with payrolls exceeding $400,000 a year would have to provide health insurance or pay the 8% penalty. Employers with payrolls between $250,000 and $400,000 a year would pay a smaller penalty, and those less than $250,000 would be exempt. Certain small firms would get tax credits to help buy coverage.

The relatively low thresholds for penalties triggered the sharpest criticism yet from employer groups, who said the burden on small business is too high and doesn't do enough to help them expand insurance coverage.

"This bill costs too much, it covers too few and it has way too much government involvement," said Michelle Dimarob, a lobbyist with the National Federation of Independent Business, the main trade group for small firms. "Small business doesn't want any of those things."

According to 2006 data from the federation, businesses with between five and nine workers, representing about one million employers, had an average payroll of around $375,000 a year. A report from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that only about half of firms with three to nine workers offered health benefits in 2008.

The minimum wage is rising about 10% this month. Unemployment is 9.7% and trending higher, according to government figures. And now Dems want an 8% payroll tax for businesses that do not provide health insurance. How high do they want unemployment to go?

Combine the cost of covering all full-time employees with insurance to the added energy costs of cap and trade, and you are looking at many small businesses closing and laying off or not hiring new employees. You think 9.5% unemployment is bad, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

I would ask “Do the Dems have any idea what they are doing?”, but I think they know exactly what they are doing.

The question I have is, assuming enough conservative Republicans are elected in 2010 and hopefully 0 is replaced in 2012, how much of this damage can be undone?

I don't expect that Obama will permit this to occur. I expect that ACORN will make sure that conservatives are not elected, and more liberals are. Then, I expect that the unspent stimulus money will be released to create a Civilian Security Force that will be used to pacify the country when elections are canceled or stolen.

"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ... And what country can preserve its liberties, if it's rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."

Thomas Jefferson

16
posted on 07/15/2009 8:59:17 AM PDT
by EscapedDutch
("Socialism is great until you run out of other people's money" - Lady Margaret Thatcher)

That's the ticket, you morons!! Kill the American dream of getting ahead by hard work and perseverance. This is going to destroy America!

Small businesses are the backbone of America. This plan will cost millions of employees to lose their jobs! If they can't kill them with forced employee health care, this additional tax is going to do it.

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